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Spit mad LA noise rock that seems to have been brought up on the mother’s milk of PIL, Sonic Youth, Zappa, MC5, Stooges. Hendrix (that’ll be the Purple Haze riff on Spike Island then) and Nine Inch Nails, the five piece barrage into town on the back of new album Penance Soiree (V2), a storm cloud of throbbing bass, jagged riffs, crunching rhythms and Joe Cardemone’s torn and bleeding vocal screams, moans and howls. Once described as the most ferocious band on the planet with a world view for which pessimism would be a step forward, they’re not without a certain commercial sensibility, wrapping a Stones meets the Stooges strut to recent single Party The Baby Off, though it’s unlikely the lyrics would ever find their way on to Radio 2. With a set list likely to also include such new skull shattering singalong as On The Lash, Meatmaker and Kiss Like Lizards, don’t expect to emerge without at least one ventricle ruptured.

Two veteran axemen get together to give the old school air guitar brigade some fret action and, undoubtedly hours of grimacing facial expressions and extended solos. Winter’s probably best remembered for his sole UK hit, 1973 instrumental Frankenstein, but like brother Johnny has a long lived rep as a rock blues man of the old school.
These days, if his In Tennessee (Repertoire) album’s any indication, Brit guitar man Lee’s more into rock n roll boogie woogie and country shaped swing, aided and abetted in the studio by Elvis sidemen Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana. Jerry Lee Lewis seems to be another obvious reference point on things like Why Did You Do It while Rock & Roll Girls and Tell Me Why are pure Chuck Berry. 
Quite how much of this he’ll be digging out for the tour remains to be seen since most fans will be wanting to relive the days he spent fronting progressive country blues outfit Ten Years After, a sort of Brit Canned Heat And by way of timely coincidence their classic Ssssh! album’s just been reissued on EMI making the likelihood of the pair teaming up for Good Morning Little Schoolgirl almost a foregone conclusion.

Back for her own headlining slot, the former Whiskeytown fiddle player will be serving up second helpings of I'm Staying Out, an album that sees her edge away from alt country and closer to the crossover mainstream. None of the Nashville spangly gloss thankfully, rather a combination of the vintage days of Patsy Cline (check the torch piano waltz Please Break My Heart), cranked up country bar room rock (Cello Girls) and Fleetwood Mac pop (You Don't Have To Hide). She gives good crying in the beer folk tinged sobbery on the title track too.
She's impressing the right people. The legendary Don Dixon's all over the album like a rash while Mary Chapin Carpenter turns up to add harmony to three tracks, the closing clarinet spiced aching love song I Want to Learn to Waltz one of the set's highlights while The Next One wouldn't sound out of place on a Carpenter album itself. 
Vocally occupying a nasal middle ground between Natalie Merchant and Lucinda Williams, Cary's sounding rightfully confident here, crossing country boundaries with ease, spinning songs of the doubts that gnaw at love's self-confidence as on the glorious folk-pop stand out Beauty Fades Away, but also of resilient women as in the poignant Lorraine Today where a single mother fears her daughter will be swayed away by her father in one verse and then prepares to give her to a husband in the next. Last time round she left audiences begging for more, so here’s it is. 
Her support’s Hoboken based singer-songwriter Kate Jacobs who, somewhere between getting married, having two children, and growing flowers, managed to put together a long awaited follow up to 1998's Hydrangea. While a childlike quality remains in her voice, where she once echoed Victoria Williams there's much more of Dolly Parton about her tone and phrasing on You Call That Dark (Bar None), particularly evident on Lavender Line.
It’s a dusty rural album's worth of warm rootsy pop suffused with a gentle melancholia and wistfulness in its tales of ordinary lives inevitably informed by her own emotional experiences as wife and mother. As with Hydrangea, family concerns loom large; the opening Your Big Sister a tribute to the inspiration and sacrifices of the first born, God Bless Ione a rowdily ramshackle jangling and tumbling pop song about her dad and the shrink who brought calm to his storms. But she's even more anchored to her farming heritage and the lives of those who've followed the calling and found the world leaving them behind. 
Farmers and farms populate the album with stories of loss and love. Pete's Gonna Sell pretty much sums up the state of affairs as she talks of a neighbour reluctantly selling his hundred year old apple farm because his kids don't want to take it on while, again noting how many farms go down each spring, in Helen Has a House she wonders how long the frail old dear who owns it can continue to keep it going. 
She may 'walk in fear of certain pain' caused by the passing of time and of words left unsaid, as she sings on I Walk In Fear (which surely borrows its melodic refrain from On Top Of The World) but even though a sad note of mortality squeezes into the lyric, on the shuffling jazzily brushed Life Can Be Sweet she's equally aware of the simple joys to be found in knowing the names of the flowers and hearing the birds sing. Likewise The Silent Hills, which borrows its melody from Plaisir D'Amour, affirms the healing power of the landscape.
For all the themes of loss there remains though a welcoming sense of comfort in listening to her sing, a sense of timeless wisdom mingled with the smell of woodsmoke and the sound of children running through fields to dangle their toes in the creek. Go take a dip.

Not sure if he’s named after the Scottish mountain they called The Cobbler, seeing as how he’s from Virginia and all, but as newly emerging singer-songwriters go Arthur clearly worth scaling to get a view from the top. He’s over here to showcase his new Edible Darling (Bardic) album, a blend of pop, country (Keep Me Around even has bluegrass banjo), wistful ballads, and FM rock with lyrics that are as darkly witty as they are thoughtful, the title track about a mate who rears pigs for food. It could probably do without the turntable scratchings on the opening Mary Anne, but behind the frills lies a solid collection of memorable melodies with a 60s heart and a propensity for nagging hooks, as much in tune with Lennon (Bloomed) as it is with the current wave of names like John Mayer. 
He can rock it up for a Stonesy strut on Sight of Your Tears, turn in a softly burred touch of the Paul Westerbergs with Broken-Hearted Smile or just shred you apart with the simple acoustics of Jesus, but whichever approach he chooses this bargain price chance to discover a name likely to be figuring prominently over the next year really shouldn’t be passed up.

An unashamedly retro trio made up of Elena Fremerman on fiddle, Whit Smith on guitar and Jake Erin on upright bass, steeped in the Western swing and classic string jazz of the 20s, 30s and 40s. Although it included trad gypsy tune Fulu Tschai, rousing instrumental Cherokee Shuffle and Rodgers and Hart’s You Took Advantage Of me, their fourth album, Ghost Train, saw them largely putting traditional numbers to one side in favour of self-penned but authentic sounding originals like 40s style fiddle tune Forget-Me-Nots, parlour sounding tunes Home and Before You and the Eastern European tinged hot clubbing It Stops With Me. Mind you they also take Aerosmith’s Chip Away The Stone and make it sound like an old Jimmie Rogers number.
They arrive now, having had to cancel last year’s gig, having released their first live album, Continental Stomp (Hightone) which reverts completely to trad tunes as they scorch it up through the likes of Orange Blossom Special, Pennies From Heaven, Chinatown, My Window Faces The South and I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby. Their set here seems likely to be a cocktail of both, but you can guarantee that whatever they play there’ll be a hot time in the cowtown tonight.
Opening proceedings will be Abner Burnett, a Buddhist Texas lawyer who recently retired to run a tree nursery, a decided eccentric individual in the world of Americana troubadours, on his 1975 debut he even included an extended instrumental workout based on Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson while the follow up featured sitar on a track called Hindu Pickin’ Cowboy.

Abner Burnett,

Always the hard rock end of folk with their thumping, crunchy rhythms section and some serious heavy guitar riffery, the Span have survived far longer than one might have expected, rivalled only by the Fairports in the longevity stakes. Still anchored around Maddy Prior, Rick Kemp, Ken Nicol, Liam Genockey and Peter Knight, this jaunt comes on the back of They Called Her Babylon (Park), their 35th anniversary album and the first collection of new material recorded with Prior since 1995. It’s typical stuff, primarily traditional material given the distinctive -if sometimes plodding - Span treatment, among the best numbers a muscular revamp of Van Diemen’s Land with Prior in vocally shrewish form, scarf swaying stomper Samain about the festival that became Halloween, Knight’s multiple harmony rearrangement of Bride’s Farewell, and a rather lovely version of the old harp tune Si Begh Si Mohr. On the other hand the title track’s a truly lumbering dirge about the siege of Lathom House in 1643.
Sounding rather dated and creaky these days in the wake of the new breed of bright young folk things like Kate Rusby, it’s unlikely that they’re ever going to catch the imagination of the new generation of audiences, but as long as they keep churning out what they’re known for the old brigade should remain steadfastly loyal.

After several supoort slots, the record store assistant turned bluesy country soul singer-songwriter gets her headline date this time round. If you’ve already discovered her impressive debut album Come Get Some and her smoky voice stained with the sound of Deep South swamps and influences such as Carole King, Joni Mitchell, The Band, and Aretha Franklin, then you should need no second urging to cram up close, knowing full well her days playing cubby holes are going to be soon numbered. 

There was once a rumour that the Avon by birth Welsh by adoption singer-songwriter was going to replace Cerys in Catatonia. The truth is that their rhythm section joined her. Wise move. Wadge (it’s pronounced as per her album title, Woj) has been frequently compared to Joni Mitchell, one of her prime inspirations, but perhaps more accurate reference points would be Janis Ian (Anywhere, written for her late father-in-law), Carole King (Nothing) , Aimee Mann (Scream) and Thea Gilmore (Just In Time), or maybe even the Indigo Girls.
Partly new recordings of material from her DIY demo album Open, the album’s a mix of gentle acoustic folksy pop and more rock inflected material like the slow ringing swagger of Valley Boy (about her actor hubbie) or Six of One where Robbie McIntosh lets his guitar off the leash. Her voice too runs the gamut from breathy wisps of smoke (Grace) to gutsier blood (Breathe), playful on things like the jaunty Paris with its cafe accordion, wistfully tender on the piano ballad June, and on Adre `Nôl, a valentine to her chosen homeland, even partly sung in Welsh. Worth putting up with the noise from the downstairs bar for. 

Not content their new Coldplay tag, recent (revamped version) single Everybody’s Changing put in pitch for the early Radiohead audience too. Well, it seems to be working, the Sussex public schoolboys well on course to fulfil the BBC’s Most Promising Act of 2004 vote. They’re not doing anything groundbreaking, but it has to be admitted that between their way with dripping forlorn melodies and Tom Chaplin’s bruised falsetto their Hopes and Fears (Island) debut album has the songs to go with the confidence, Bend And Break, Your Eyes Open and Bedshaped perfect samples of their way with sorrow, sadness and regret while the aptly titled Sunshine shows they can put the lachrymose to one side when they feel like it. It’s a little worrying that they seem to have a fondness for soft rock as evidenced on This Is The Last Time and the evidence of bass on a few of the tracks suggests they may yet find themselves welcoming a guitar into their trademark drums/piano live format too, but for now at least auntierock and artistic compromise should be the least of anyone’s worries. 

Icelandic left field thrash with churning guitars, pummelling rhythms and tortured vocals, this lot were featured on the soundtrack to ace Icelandic movie 101 Reykjavik, which gives a rough idea of the sort of balance of urgency and nihilism they project. After having ecently barnstormed their way through support slots with Amen and Biffy Clyro, they’re now packing in a headline tour to promote jetstream rocking single Romantic Exorcism (Bad Taste) before heading back home to worry the polar bears. 

Just back from demolishing America and Japan, with barely time to catch their breath the Welsh boys set out on their biggest UK headline tour yet to remind the locals of their brand of emo hardcore. Nothing new clogging the record stores this time though they have stuck a live and uncensored version of The Art of American Football up on the net as a download single. Sponsored by Kerrang, the night also features Million Dead, The Haunted and One Line Drawing. 

Not the actual headliners, but providing (along with patently demoted Therapy?) support to The Wildhearts, the Leeds five piece clearly spent their formative years searching the bargain bins for copies of old Stooges, Guns n Roses and New York Dolls albums, their new single Here Comes A Close Up (Infectious) a blistering wedge of degenerate barroom rock n roll delivered with a guitar in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other. Classic? Hell, You Need You even features cowbells! 

They’ve never repeated the success of their debut hit One Week in the UK charts, but albums like Stunt, Gordon and Maroon and such songs as Brian Wilson (which Wilson himself featured in his live shows) and Be My Yoko Ono have kept their cult status sufficiently cranked up to warrant the Canadians nipping over for some live dates to promote their first album in four years, Everything To Everyone (Reprise).
As ever they serve up catchy pop melodies and lyrics laced liberally with sharp wit and quirky humour, which inevitably means that too much feels like being stuck in a room with someone who insists on peppering his conversation with puns, one liners and knowing ironies. There’s a slightly sombre flavour this time round, an inevitable fall out from 9/11, with songs questioning perspectives and values in a changed world so that Shopping (easily the most irritating track here) addresses rampant consumerism, Celebrity sticks it to the quest for media fame, the upbeat country stomper Second Best is about America’s blinkered drive to be number one while Testing 1.2.3 concerns how we reinvent the past to suit our memories but also turns it back on themselves to question their own status as a band. 
Another Postcard, which is basically about someone sending the singer postcards with chimps on, is the album’s attempt to repeat One Week and as such one of the lesser efforts while the gypsy flavoured Upside Down and the relentlessly perky Unfinished swiftly become the ones to push the skip button for. But there’s good stuff here too, the poppily fabulous Maybe Katie about seeing an old girlfriend and finding the feeling’s still there, the banjo picking country regret song For You and, more than anything, the gently swaying War On Drugs, which takes an old Squeeze melody to a poignant tale of depression and suicide. 
There may be nothing that’s going to elevate them to arena levels over here, but at least they be assured of enough of a crowd down the front to make the trip worthwhile.

With a history that embraces incarnations as both a Queen and Bee Gees tribute band and a stint doing covers of computer game themes, the Leeds outfit have finally taken their assorted Motown, Sonic Youth, beat pop and Smiths influences and settled into a garage pop thing that casually flirts with thoughts of Dinosaur Jr and The Strokes. But if recent single, the underachieving, lackadaisical Housemartinsish You Were Always The One is symptomatic of how they process them then the world shouldn't be making too much effort to remember their name for a while yet. 

Still looking to find their balance after releases and live shows that have varied from the sublime to the downright awful, this jaunt marks the release of Heroes To Zeroes (Regal), an album that finds them edging away from their pot infused psychedelic experimenting grooves into a slightly ballsier, albeit still eclectic, invitation to the mainstream, offering crunchy tribal poprock with Space and the glam-blues derived percussive boogie Easy, spacey progfolk on Lion Thief, dreamy Lennonesque balladeering for Wonderful and getting into some serious drum battery and riffs on Out-Side where they sound like Primal Scream teaming with XTC for a pagan festival celebration anthem or the early Floyd shapes of Liquid Bird. They’re still sufficiently out there on occasion (the quirky organ psychedelic mantra of Space Beatle, the ISB meet Syd Barrett flavours of instrumental Rhododendron) to satisfy those who regard them as the second coming of Ummagumma but as the U2 guitar of Assessment ably shows, they’re also focused on moving beyond dancing round cornstacks. If I were you I’d join the carnival and get beta blocked

On the off chance I may, in the light of some glowing reviews, have been overly harsh in my comments on Casey and new album Living in previewing his recent support slot, I gave it a second chance for this low key headline date. But no, even repeated listens with a deliberately sympathetic ear fails to reveal more than dully straining vocals that mark him as no more than a colourless David Gray plodding through his Van Morrison influences on a collection of run of the mill folksy pop songs with intermittent blues and soul textures and some awkward nailed on beats. To be fair, Saints & Sinners is a catchy slice of hummable hook chorus and Bend Down Low is the least tedious of his melancholic weary ballads, but those are the only concessions he’s going to get from here. 

After the glowing accolades for Highly Evolved Australia’s answer to a post grunge Strokes were brought up short with reaction to their Winning Days (Heavenly) follow-up, reviews uncharitably but accurately pointing out the dearth of tunes and decent songs and the excess of tedious guitar churning. Some of the quieter moments, like the title track, psychedelic spacey ballad Autumn Shade II and the sunny 60s Beatlesy vibe of Rainfall go some way to relieving the boredom and Ride at least has a half-decent juddery riff, but if you aren’t willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as to the ability to pull something out of the hat live, there’s really nothing here to tempt anyone into forking out for a ticket.

If there’s one thing you can rely on with this lot it’s that you never get served the same album twice. Constantly reinventing themselves while keeping within a basic rock format, their new album, A Crow Left of the Murder (Epic), their finest yet, distilling their live raw energy into muscular angry rockers such as the politically driven Megalomaniac, the staccato rifling Priceless and the ebb and flow title track as well as the rather more sedate country tinged ballad Southern Girl, the politically barbed Raw war thumbed atmospheric Made For TV Movie and even a frayed nerves Here In My Room which, using piano for the first time, suggests they’ve been investigating the Radioed section of their local store. 
With the six minute funk-rock inclined Sick Sad Little World providing the album’s fulcrum and Smile Lines holding up the mainstream radio end of things, it’s clear that while they may miss the direct action of departed drummer Irk Lance, their excursion into more complex grooves to match the churning in their emotions bodes well for a seriously killer set. 

Hard to believe they’ve been going for ten years, but just to reinforce the fact this is their pension serving hits tour which seems pretty much to serve as a guide to what you can expect from the gig. They may have to stretch the definition a bit though if they intend to actually stretch beyond their 11 Top 20 singles, especially since the tie-in Super grass Is 10 album features 21 tracks, which even taking into account the three singles that didn’t make the grade and the brand new Kiss of Life still leaves seven (OK six if you count Time as a double A side) they’d roped in from album cuts to make up the numbers. Which means you could well find yourself trying to remember the words of Rush Hour Soul and Strange Ones when you’re not belting out the chorus to Going Out, All right or Pumping On Your Stereo, but hey when that poppy flurry strikes who’s counting chart positions. 
Urgent retro blues rock support from the excellent 22-20s whose Why Don’t You Do It For Me single is enough to make The Strokes want to admit defeat and pack it all in. 

Formed back in the 70s, the Edinburgh based Bairns are one of Scotland’s longest serving traditional outfits although their reluctance to take the tour van over the border or indeed spend much time in it at all means that even in their native land they remain something of an underground force. 
However the current incarnation has been lured down south with promises of lord knows what to treat the sassenachs and ex-pats to a fine evening of jigs, marches, reels, airs and songs, much culled from the recent (well 2001) Greentrax album May Ye Never Lack A Scone (Gude Claret a particularly rousing call to arms) and A, which compiles much of their self-titled debut and all of its follow-up, The Lasses Fashion, the title track jig being chosen by Richard Thompson as one of his all time top ten favourites back in 1982. They’ve added a few more since then and even if you’ve never heard Jock’s wee laddies before chances are there’ll be a couple of tunes here likely to worm their way into your affections too.

Having scored two Top 40 hits, Get Through and Fly, totally through his own efforts and a third, the recent radio friendly Bringing Back The Memories following his signing to Warners, Joseph now sets out to promote the re-recorded version of his debut album, Scream. Well, the sound may be fuller thanks to the involvement of producers Paul Buckmaster and Marc Tanner but the fact remain that the music is basically your bog standard Oasis blues and ballads with some Elton-ish piano and a vague suggestion of Bon Jovi and/or The Who on Any Evidence. And with lines like "can you feel me pressing in to your brain, what’s the verdict do you feel the pain’ he’ll not be troubling the Novello awards panel any time in the near future. 

He may have had a car accident and an infection that resulted in the amputation of part of his leg, but musically he’s in as fine a fettle as ever, as witness On The Cobbles (Independiente), his 22nd album and first in four years and a fine collection of jazzy, bluesy folk rock, the songs spilling over with an organic flow and warmth, Go Down Easy even sounding as if it might have come from the classic Solid Air era.
Wonderfully atmospheric, Martyn’s always smoky voice sounding even more stained with honey and nicotine than ever (though on the warbling gravel count in to Frankie Miller’s Baby Come Home he sounds like Noddy Holder and then proceeds to sound like he’s singing steeped in delta mud), bringing a wearied charm to One For The Road’s gently skipping new love song while the excellent funky blues title track could give Tom Waits a run for his throaty money. 
The album boasts some hefty collaborators, Andy Sheppard blowing some greasy sax on the spiritual mysticism of My Creator, Mavis Staples duetting on the laid back gospelly Goodnight Irene and Paul Weller on organ and vocals for Under My Wing, and while they’ll not be out in force for the tour it’s a measure of the album’s strength and Martyn’s refound fire that you’ll not miss them.

At 58 (if you believe the bio, though parts of her are considerably younger), she’s decided to pack in schlepping around the concert halls and arenas and go out in style with a lavish farewell spectacular, wheeling out ten all new outlandish costumes alongside her other legendary gowns as well as providing a nostalgic journey through her recording career. Now while this will, out of matters of musical good taste, necessitate skipping large chunks of her 70s output, it will also feature a surprisingly high proportion of what have become classics, Bang Bang, All I Really Want To Do and Gypsies Tramps and Thieves in there alongside the undervalued Half Breed, her version of Just Like Jesse James and more recent nuggets as the belting If I Could Turn Back Time, Strong Enough and, of course, her big comeback hit I Believe, with or without wobbly vocoder bit. 
I’m not sure the prospect of hearing her tackle U2’s I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For or being in any audience as she does The Shoop Shoop Song is to be particularly relished, but she’s always been a spectacular show(wo)man and this swansong truly does promise to be something to remember.

Although they've been relatively active on the touring front, the fact they went to ground as a band between 94-98 and haven't released an album in six years probably means most people think the Flowers have wilted and died. However, finally getting themselves into the studio, Into Your Heart (Rubyworks) makes a convincing argument for their continuing existence even if they'll never find a spot in the lyricists hall of fame. 
Though still steeped in the barroom fumes of whiskey and Guinness that characterised such early defining classics as Don't Go (The End of the Road a fine taste of closing time singalong sway), Liam O'Maonlai and the boys are sounding more soulful than ever, the falsetto notes of Better Man especially bending them into gospel shapes while there's definite shades of Al Green colouring Santa Monica and Magic Bracelets is the sort of Celtic soul trademarked by Van Morrison. 
It doesn't all shine, Hallelujah's a bit of a plodder and Tell Me is one of those jamming like keyboards driven funky r&b workouts that bands such as Three Dog Night used to think gave them soul cred. However, with numbers such as the simple piano vocal blues soul Feel Like Living, heartfelt scarf waver Baby I Got You and the brass flourishing opening stadium belter Your Love Goes On setting the predominant mood and quality mark this is a welcome affirmation that these hardy perennials remain alive and blooming well.
Support’s provided by fellow Irish outfit and labelmates Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club, behind which lurks one Gerard Whelan former frontman for late lamented 90s outfit An Emotional Fish who were at one point hailed as the next U2. They imploded in the mid 90s with Whelan resurfacing with his new outfit some seven years later in 2002, recruiting such native names as Damien Rice and erstwhile Commitments members Maria Doyle Kennedy and Bronagh Gallagher to help out on vocals for the band’s debut album, Be Yourself. 
But old Fish fans shouldn’t expect to come over all Emotional, things are a bit different this time round with a sound that mixes together jazz, blues, latin, soul and country and conjures such various comparisons as Tom Waits, Dr John, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Lee Hazelwood (Ger actually duets with Juliet Turner on Lee & Nancy’s Did You Ever) and Gavin Friday on songs that musically prowl from Tex Mex barrooms (Upside Down, Life Story) and New Orleans parades ( Bob & God, My Friend Jim) to seedy jazz cellars (Daddy Was A Devil, It Don’t Get Much Better Than This) and upright bass twanging back porches (Be Yourself). Well worth reeling in.

Son of Roy with similar vocal phrasings and a bit of a guitar wizard in his own right, like dad Harper can be somewhat erratic in his output. Case in point the current Blood Songs (Sangraal), an introspective album which finds him doing a Robbie Williams with quasi rap on the dire Love Junky one moment and then melding Lennon and Jeff Buckley for Vampire Song the next. For the most part though it connects, wringing you inside out with Imaginary Friend’s tribute to his late mother or the gentle acoustic Lily’s Song for his daughter. And if any proof were needed of his dexterity on the six strings then the opening Foreplay and The Kissing Gate settle the matter without argument. The ferociously molten title track with its swirling organ and searing guitar and the perkier rocking pop of The Wanderer and His Shadow show what he can do when he lets the band and his electric sensibilities of the leash and while the gig will find him in sparser acoustic mode the power will still be there, just framed in a different dimension.

Playing a gig at Birmingham's top comedy club may prove something of a dilemma for the Detroit singer-songwriter since she has a parallel life as a stand-up comedienne under the alter ego of Sheila, a pizza delivery woman in an arm-sling and neck-brace. Usually she doesn't mix the two up that much on stage, but perhaps tonight the venue may prove too much of a temptation. Especially given Sheila's now got her own cover band, Strawberry Jam.
I can't vouch for her comedy, but on the basis of her recent album Only With Laughter Can You Win (Sub-Pop), I can say she has the voice of an angel and writes beautifully hushed, heartaching songs of personal reflection on which she conjures the spirit of Joni Mitchell and Carole King, though you may also detect a trace of Janis Ian and Emmylou. If Let Myself Fall, the album's brief a capella opening track hymn to surrendering to love recorded with her mother in an old Detroit church, doesn't send shivers down the back of your neck then you need your pulse checked. And it just gets better. On the fragile folksy Red Rover, perhaps the closest to Emmylou here though also evocative of the McGarrigles,  she's joined by Sam Beam for the sort of love song duet to make you go weak at the knees while One More Day muses over lost opportunities and the simple piano and violin accompanied You and Me celebrates the depth and fragility of love and the resilience and determination to handle the pain that, as on Sell All My Things, enables you to carry on if it breaks. I Play Music she affirms on the album's most upbeat and self- affirming track, and she does it wonderfully too.   Likely to be offering harmony support to Thomas, labelmate, film professor and sometime painter Beam will also be providing his own set under his Iron & Wine alias, drawing primarily from his recently well received new album Our Endless Numbered Days. 

Iron & Wine

 Sufjan Stevens

Reformed following their 1999 split, they've not diluted their righteous anger during the down time, comeback album SCHEMatic (One Little Indian) still finding them spitting out  their agit-prop vitriol to the accompaniment of  heavy grinding guitar riffing, hip hop techno, rap, beats and the contrast between Heithman Al Sayad's crushing guttural vocals and those of the more delicate Kerstin Haigh.
No blowsy love songs here as titles such as Formula Milk, The Brunt, Photographed Files, Bomb Factories, Bulletproof and A Conscious War address such issues as materialistic complacency, mass mind control, paranoia, government control and other such right wing lullabies. You're either with them, or your not. But either way they'll still have the body dancing like a dervish. 

In the world of  instant turnover factory produced popstars and record labels that aren't interested in nurturing artists, it seems sadly unlikely that the artist formerly known as Black will ever find himself back in the Woolworths chart CD racks. Not that this bothers him unduly, having spent the past few years carving a very respectable career out of releasing his albums via the internet, fan club and gigs. 
Case in point being the current Smoke Up Close, a double CD of  30 songs, recorded as live with no overdubs on just acoustic guitar and occasional Dylanesque harmonica and piano without. When many acts have a problem getting 30 minutes worth of new material together over the course of two years, Colin knocked these off in just three months and without any dip in the quality control. At his best he stands shoulder to shoulder with those early Scott Walker solo albums.
Although there's songs like Waitin' where he'll drop into the funkier side of the blues or pick up the tempo as on Seeds And Stalks or the folksy backporch gospel of Needle Time,  the prevailing mood is reflective and introspective with many of the songs concerned in various ways with mortality and the fleeting quality of life, success and relationships.  Rich in word play wit, irony and references to pop and film culture (he even works a reference to Wonderful Life into one of the tracks), these are songs to soak in and savour the full depth of the melancholic emotions in something like the tenderly poignant Quinn's Old Flame, History of Rock And Roll's resigned observations on the burn out inherent in fame, The Bride with its line about" a drop of evil in the sweetest kiss" or  the radiant optimism of  The Sunshine. 
  Last  time round he was working solo, but for this tour he's put together a small band which should give extra body to such radio friendly numbers as  River Ride Woman and Dying For The Quarter, offering the promise of an even more exceptional night from an exceptional exceptional performer.

The dust having settled on recent single I Opt Out, the Anglo-Irish four piece gird up their Fugazi clad rock loins to pave the way for the next lift from last year's Once Like A Spark in the shape of the loosely emo flavoured Brave Gravity (Smalltown America), generally agreed to be not only the album's best track but also the band's defining moment. 

Formerly session keyboard player for George Clinton and Prince, Joseph Fiddler now makes the solo break with debut album Waltz Of A Ghetto Fly (Genuine), an old school meld of  funk, jazz and nu-soul filtered through an r&b spectrum of  Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye and, more recently, D'Angelo and Maxwell. It's a cool urban  groove on which he tends to talk a lot of love, peace and happiness on numbers such as Love & War, Superficial, I Believe In You, the title track and a very 60s soul sounding If You Can't Get Me Off Your Mind. He'll be playing two sets, so hopefully by the time of the second he'll have seduced enough chattering punters up from the bar to get down to some serious funkin'. 

There was, you may recall, a degree of unjustified excitement over their not particularly good but Top 10 nevertheless speed pop cover of  Genie In A Bottle. Now comes the debut album that sees that tacked on to the end of thirteen self-penned numbers that do little to change the opinion that they're just another run of the mill female fronted soft rock  outfit with some catchy pop hooks and too many Blondie/Texas/Pretenders comparisons than are healthy. 
To be fair they do have their memorable moments, the acoustic ballad Always Here, the very Texas-like Seven Nights, a curiously T'Pau sounding Overdrive and Walk On By which allows Jill Jackson to stretch her vocals and show some gutsy depth. But if after two hits they're still playing small venues like this then perhaps Jackson should heed the line in Talk To Me about 'going nowhere fast' and pay heed to the album title if she's looking to move her career anywhere but stuck. 

Brum born Mike Skinner's back, following up feverishly acclaimed debut Original Pirate Material with kitchen sink concept album A Grand Don't Come For Free detailing a week when his TV, romance and £1000 savings all went belly up. Its first single, Fit But You Know It figures prominently in instant cult movie The Football Factory, the first film that can justifiably lay claim to be the new Trainspotting. Unfortunately, despite his local connections advance preview copies weren't available in time for this preview though advance word speaks highly of the big orchestral ballad Dry Your Eyes, the downbeat going joyless clubbing Blinded By The Light, waster's anthem I Wouldn't Have  It Any Other Way and the closing epic of broken self-pity but ultimately redemptive Empty Cans. Sounds more like Mike Gayle. 

Missing presumed dead in the wake of label disasters, the Brummie boys return with a vengeance for Who Do You Love (Discovery), an album that singlehandedly looks to spark a Marc Bolan revival and (with the new version of the classic  Kamikaze) console desolate Suede fans. 
From the opening trashy glam T Rex rock n roll of Drag (which sounds exactly like a lost track from The Slider), they rampage through a storm of 80s rifferama that inevitably throws up the familiar Manics (Depression, Sweet Abandon) and Manson (Asleep) references alongside such side bars as Sweet (Love So Volatile), never pausing for breath (well except for the piano bits on the depressing Sweet Abandon) as they rip through the likes of the typically smutty Come, the rowdy rude pop Maniac Love (which should conjure New York Dolls but bizarrely reminds me of The Runaways) and the jubilant bounce of Boy For Rent and hook laden live favourite Death By Rock and Roll. Slightly out of synch with what's happening around them perhaps, but still one of the best live acts capable of  plugging in a guitar and a very persuasive reason for keeping those stocks of eye-liner supplied. 

It’s a couple of years since he was last round these parts, packing them in at the same venue and talking about plans to record a vaguely concept album about life up North. That’s yet to materialise, but he returns now with arguably his warmest, most poignantly intimate album to date. A perfect working model of his live show, Long Story Short (Fellside) is a simple voice and acoustic guitar affair, gently rippling with reflective, wistful and nostalgic songs about first loves, found loves, lost loves and loves that never were.
There’s no musical frills, just plain, folksily autumnal melodies from a sweetly tuned melancholic guitar, but Gregson’s never sounded as relaxed and comfortable in his soul as he does on the opening Cornerstone, a touching affirmation of a life changing love that is coloured with the smells of rural English countrysides. 
Reminiscences of childhood tumble through the lazily rolling Over The Garden Wall as he recalls those first stirrings of the heart on seeing some ponytailed local lass. Too shy at ten, he didn’t get the girl and there’s several songs here to suggest he remained fairly unlucky in love, regrets whimsically veining the stalled relationship of the hymnal sounding I Never Learned A Thing About You (on which he swaps guitar for piano), memories rubbing salt into the wounds on Ghosts, self-recrimination staining My Bitter Half and the lost opportunities of the wonderfully titled (though credit for that goes to Iain Matthews) Joan of Arkansas.
And yet,while Paper Dolls does take a snide swipe at the aristocracy, there’s no bitterness anywhere here. Quiet acceptance that life isn’t always going to have the trains running on time and the bed will always have someone to warm it is there on the intricately picked My Other Life, while Wintertime, I Remember You, Your Love and the mildly bluesy All My Stories are variously celebrate the certainty of present love and the bittersweet joys of those that passed. The backporch strumming of Jenny even paints a blissful - if perhaps wistfully imagined - picture of true romance, growing old together and kids running round your legs. 
The album’s final two tracks, the banjo plucked backwoods folk-roots Goldfish Bowl and the soothing Cool Rain find him considering his life, dreaming of escaping from swimming round in circles but finally acknowledging that "if I had my chance I’d do it all again" with the calm reassurance of a man who’s put his demons to spiritual rest.
Beyond question the best thing he’s done since his solo debut Strange Persuasions, hopefully in a two part set he’ll find room to squeeze a decent handful of the songs inbetween his regular back catalogue sampling and amusingly dry anecdotal banter. And do me a favour, if he does include the revised acoustic version of the old Any Trouble track Trouble With Love, don’t let him leave until he’s signed a pledge to actually record the thing. 

The departure of co-founder guitarist Ben Moody in the middle of their last tour doesn’t seem to have affected the Arkansas goth-rock outfit, but then since they essentially revolve around mascara-eyed rock chick singer Amy Lee you could probably replace all the musicians with sessioneers and no one would bother. Anyways, following the Grammys triumphs they’re back in the slimmed down quartet version and still flogging their mega-selling Fallen album that’s recently added Going Under to the singles hit list of Bring Me To Life and My Immortal and is mined yet again for the forthcoming Everybody’s Fool.
With Lee’s dark prowling vocals and songs about pain, emptiness, torment, salvation and suicide, they can be relied upon to serve up something of a metal noise storm with things like Tourniquet and Haunted but it’s actually the quieter moments like Hello that really show off their strengths. They could do with some time out to put together new material and freshen up the set, but for the time being at least they seem to be riding unfeasibly high.
Support comes from LA quartet Hoobastank whose new album The Reason (Island) shares a musical sensibility with Jimmy Eat World in its guitar drive, kicking along through things like Same Direction, Just One or the single Out of Control while Lucky and the title track pull back the curtain on their more emo aspirations with singer Doug Robb coming over all emotive, hitting the big epic swell on the closing Disappear. 
It’s the familiar world of youthful alienation as far as the songs go, not fitting in, being prejudged, not being understood and having relationships blow up, but while it’s all well put together and stirring while it’s in the player, there’s little here to make you keep going back. 

Formed by former King Pleasure bassist Al Gare, guitarist Oliver Darling, drummer Dean Beresford and Hammond man Danny McCormack, this hot rocking Birmingham combo look to scorch a few walls and cut a groove through the dance floor with the launch gig for their self-titled debut album (Gypsy Rose). 
Taking their cues from the twangy twistbeat and go go sounds of late 50s California (with a touch of surf guitars a la The Ventures) it’s a collection of some of the more obscure 50s instrumentals likely to have been found blasting out of beat clubs, cellar dives, frat parties and surf shacks with tracks including Link Wray’s Black Widow and Run Chicken Run, the old Routers hit Let’s Go!, Dick Dale’s Let’s Go Trippin’, the Lifeguards Chuck Berry-ish Everybody Outa Da Pool, and the fairly self-explanatory Drums a go-go! Sweating authenticity, it promises to be a rip tide night. 

With a new gig recently added at the NIA for June, they’re clearly making the most of things before the impact of Bryan McFadden’s departure takes hold, though in the light of the spectacular lack of success enjoyed by his Eurovision entry the rest of the lads might be thinking they’ve got the better end of the split. This second set of dates continues their slog through the greatest hits album for those who can actually name more than two hit singles.
Rather more interesting is the incoming support outfit for the 23-25 dates, Dublin based girl Bellefire who I thought had vanished without a trace following their first two singles, a cover of U2’s All I Want is You and the Corrs-lite pop of Perfect Bliss. 

Bellefire

The latest boys on the New York garage block, their frame of retro reference is patently the vintage days of the Stones, the trio’s self-titled debut album (Kanine) throwing up the country flavours of Sticky Fingers on You Got Me Crying (though Change Your Mind is more in the Jason & The Scorchers yeehaw mould) while Turning Round and Lonely perfectly ape the strut of Honky Tonk Women, Highway Blues comes on like a Street Fighting Man and Strange has the dirty sweet taste of Brown Sugar. 
It’s not all Mick and Keef nods though, Velocity and Stand Up Laughing, Fall Down Crying surely suggest an equal affection for the Iggy of the Stooges, but wherever they source the riffs this is rough, fuzzy, sweaty and noisy blues rock guaranteed to get your shirt off. 

It’s felt a long two years since Malin released his scorching debut album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction but the wait’s almost over, this welcome return gig heralding the upcoming The Heat (One Little Indian). Although a fuller sonic affair with more layered electric guitars and lots more noise, there’s still that strangled Springsteen edge to the voice although there’s several occasions (notably the desolate Going Out West and the starkly haunting Basement Home) where Neil Young’s mournful whine rings through. 
It remains true to the blueprint of its predecessor though with rock n rolling tales of loss and defiance about the Big Apple’s helpless romantics, losers, dreamers and survivors, albeit now veined with echoes of life on the road (Hotel Columbia) and (the tumbling jangled bitter Mona Lisa and a rowdy but downbeat New World Order) the screwed up post 9/11 world. With songs populated by characters desperately trying to make it in the heartless city (Silver Manhattan, the Lofgren-like Arrested), disillusionment with America (the slow burning God’s Lonely People) and loves and dreams abandoned, let go or leaving (About You, Block Island, Indian Summer) it’s not the most upbeat of affairs, and yet you can hear the optimism in the music with its major chords and ringing guitars, a defiant refusal to give in, a determination to seize the moment and, as with the wiry rocker Scars Of Love, to wear the wounds with pride. 
There should be a hefty selection of the new material being wheeled out into the showcase spotlight, but it’s also a pretty fair bet that those who’ve turned up to hear Queen of the Underworld and Wendy won’t go home disappointed. 

It’s been just over a year since the British emo trio trod the boards, but they’ve not been idle in their absence. Busy working on their follow up to last year’s Overgrown Eden, they arrive now to unveil tracks from the as yet untitled upcoming album, trailed by first single Faster The Chase (Music For Nations), a beltingly soaring slab of growling throatiness, churning melody and heart ripping angst. 
Support’s provided by Bath born label mates X Is Loaded, a no less driven quartet of thundering guitar energy and hard rock riffs stapled to pop-punk swagger on kick off single Laugh, Point & Wave, though the waltzing The Start of Everything shows they know where the sensitive quiet knob is too. 

The French invasion continues to trickle through, this electro four piece a rather more obvious pop proposition than Air, Run Run Run (Source), the first single from the forthcoming Alphabetical album, all summery gentle 80s hip hop grooves that even conjures thoughts of the softer AM rock side of Ben Folds Five. I’m An Actor suggests they can do moody sulk as well as any of their countrymen, but really this is music for a generation in search of their own AOR. 

Appearing as support skapop crew Less Than Jake, the Ventura quintet serve reminder of current album Ocean Avenue (Capitol) and new single Way Away, upbeat chewy punkpop songs of self-empowerment and self-discovery all that have seen them tagged alongside the likes of Offspring, Blink 182, All American Rejects and so on. Country flavoured fiddle stomper View From Heaven (about the death of one of their mates) suggests they may have come across the odd Wonderstuff albums while songs like Believe and Back Home display more depth than the usual worries about whether you’ll fart in front of the girlfriend’s parents. They don’t push any boundaries, but within their own limits they’re worth arriving early for. 

There was a too many drugs moment when he looked like he might become another celebrity kid casualty, but Loudon and Kate’s scion has beaten back the demons and darkness to emerge as one of the most gifted entertainers doing the rounds with a live show that’s as much campy cabaret as it is singer-songwriter rock n roll, injecting engaging banter and - a bit like his dad - barbed outspoken political comments between the songs. 
Though he’d be loathe to dub it a comeback, he’s over here to promote the re-release of last year’s critically acclaimed and heavily personal third album, Want One (Dreamworks) and, no doubt, afford a taste of its more political sequel Want Two as well as newly established live favourite The Gay Messiah. 
Shorn of the big production and orchestral backing, you’ll not be getting the full Broadway show feel to things like I Don’t Know What It Is and 14th Street or the tuba and Ravel’s Bolero of Oh What A World, but it’s in the Brian Wilson-esque intimacy that he hits hardest and it’s difficult to imagine hearing him sing Pretty Things, the folksy Beautiful Child, a tenderly fragile Nathalie, the yearning Vibrate (even without the tickling cello), the naked title love song and such piano ballads as Harvester of Hearts, Dinner At Eight (an acidic swipe cum plea for affirmation of love about his absent father) and Velvet Curtain Rag without feeling a tug around the heart. 
Billed as an evening with... it’s very much a family affair, the night also featuring a set by sister Martha (long overdue a new album herself) and an always welcome appearance by his mom and aunt Kate and Anna McGarrigle who, aside from entrancing everyone with their pure harmonies on such classics as Talk To Me Of Mendocino and Heart Like A Wheel will likely be lending a hand on some sort of get together encore finale. Unmissable. 

Some 27 albums down the line, short of winning a Canadian answer to Pop Idol the chances of Cockburn breaking out of his international cult status and recovering the mainstream attention he had with Wondering Where The Lions are a lifetime ago seem pretty remote. And while the revenue from album sales might be nice, I suspect that's now the way he likes it. He's not preaching to the converted so much as making music for those ready to listen. 
While slightly more jazz influenced than usual, his latest album, You've Never Seen Everything (Cooking Vinyl), is pretty much form; tightly channelled loose rhythms, a heated temperature and songs that address personal, spiritual, political and social concerns. 
Setting the mood with the opening talking song Tried and Tested, it's concerned with contemporary spiritual malaise and the need to rise above it, a theme explored further on things like All Our Dark Tomorrows with its jungle sounds and image of 'shrunken men stuffed up with greed' and the attack on corporate self-interest with its 'sweatshop subjugation’ that is Trickle Down. 
It doesn't ease up. Postcards From Cambodia, another lengthy talking song, paints a vivid picture of the landscape from his window before moving on to shake its head at human history as he considers the seven million landmines that remain in Vietnam’s terraced grass. 
It's not all darkness. Cockburn's not one to lead you into the night without showing you the day beyond. Put It In Your Heart is an oblique 9/11 number that reaches out to find love in a time of terror while Don't Forget About Delight serves reminder that ultimately anger passes. 
A brilliant live performer with the ability to heat up a freezer with his smouldering arrangements and guitar work, this is an all too rare visit and, given the intimacy of the venue and the chance of him taking a journey through the back catalogue, really deserves your keenest attention. 

Five years on from picking up the Mercury Music Prize with their debut album, their fourth album is a million mile away from its wannabe Tom Waits blues gruffness. Indeed, Split The Difference (Hut) is a predominantly breezy collection of sunny West Coast psychedelic pop (Nothing Is Wrong) with, on the rousing Silence and These 3 Sins especially, lashings of 60s Beatles and Hollies influences.
However, while We Don’t Know Where We’re Going is throaty indie rock to a military beat, Chicken Out is and Catch Me Up all jaunty pop sparks, they’ve not forsaken the blues entirely and long time devotees can seek familiar comfort in Chicken Out, a dirty swamp Where Ya Going, the throaty buzzsaw punctuated Do One, a country blues Sweet Virginia and, best of all, the clomping stop start percussive jazzy rhythm carrying Meet Me In The City. It make take a few plays for some to adjust to the shifts, but with an undented live reputation providing the bait most should walk away from the gig convinced by the broadening of the band’s horizons. 

See you wait for ages for a best of collection and the two come along at once. In a curious clash of release timings, not only is there the double disc Life Story (Universal) best of out to coincide with this final farewell tour but also The Essential Collection (EMI). Inevitably many of their early classic instrumentals crop up on both, so if you’re going to invest in one it’s really a case of which of the muzak padding is the least turgid. In which case the EMI set wins hand down as you only have to sit through their painful versions of Good Vibrations and Bridge Over Troubled Waters (sadly Don’t Cry For Me Argentina figures on both) whereas the other is positively overflowing with such lift wallpaper as Every Breath You Take, Moonlight Shadow. Walk Of Life and, of dear, Memory. Hard to believe really considering their decline into supermarket cover versions that it was the Shads and Hank Marvin especially who launched a generation of aspirant guitarists long before The Beatles gave everyone dreams of pop stardom. They’ll be revisiting such magic moments as Apache, FBI. The Frightened City and Wonderful Land, still sounding as fresh as when first minted, though if you hear Hank tuning up for You’re The One That I Want I’d make my excuses and leave. 

After his previous lo fi bluesy country noodlings, who’d have expected the Blur refugee to make an album which not only puts his old band’s cockerney geezer parklife pop into overdrive as Happiness In Magazine (Transcopic) does on Bittersweet Bundle of Misery but also kicks up a rowdy set of punky heels on Freakin’ Out and People of the Earth (which surely nicks from Get Ready) and then nips out for some CBGBs slashing guitar sneery new wave riffery with Spectacular and the Hoxton bashing No Good Time! There’s still time for the old persuasions with the string laden acoustic All Over Me , the bluesy desert twang cinemascope of Are You Ready and the plaintive strung out closing piano ballad Ribbons And Leaves, but he seems to be enjoying the rush of blood to the head so much at the moment that, even if they don’t really stand up to inspection by the lyric police, it’ll be the ones that have you bouncing off the walls rather than moping in the corner that loom loudest tonight.
Getting the vibe going will be Dublin singer-songwriter Cathy Davey who, having paid dues as backing singer on Elbow’s Grace album, has just released her own debut EP Come Over (Regal), a blues slurry affair which variously illuminates her cocktail of Tom Waits, Bjork and Kate Bush influences, the title track sounding like a sweeter, pixieish PJ Harvey.

Still not playing the arenas to which his talent entitles him, the sweet smoke voiced Irish singer-songwriter nonetheless packs a stadium’s worth of energy and musical prowess into his shows. He’s out on the road this time to promote his new double Live In Belfast (Curb) album which gives a reasonable sketch of what to expect in its balancing of self-penned bittersweet romantic nuggets like Now That I Know What I Want, Margaret Barry Broke My Heart and Captured (here in a medley with Dirty Old Town), covers (Put The Message In The Box, a Celtic infused Only Love Can Break Your Heart, and the obligatory Van Morrison content Crazy Love/Have I Told You lately) and such interpretations of Irish traditional chestnuts as, Carrickfergus, a rocked up Curragh of Kildare, I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen and, yes, even Danny Boy, a career move which suggests he may be looking to capture some stray, more discerning Daniel O’Donnell fans. 

They’re back then, six years standing and showing no sign of creative wear and tear, aptly descriptive new album Meltdown (Infectious) a roaring rush of guitar stoked adrenaline, raging solos, urgent rhythms and big pounding pop. They may take the tempo down slightly for big scarf swayer Starcross’d but it’s the only time they sit back for a breather, thrashing into metal riff screams with Vampire Love, taking Weezerish melody tracks for I Won’t Be Saved, doing a fair Foo Fighters turn with Out Of The Blue, and generally cranking out the bouncing chorus hooks that spark from Renegade Cavalcade, Detonator and Clones.  Not perhaps littered with too many entries for the next greatest hits collection, but certainly not one to have anyone not renewing the fan club membership.